South Africa: International solidarity with the Struggle of the CPUT strikers!

Not peanuts! For bread and roses!

Joint Statement of Workers International Vanguard League (WIVL, South Africa) and the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT)

We declare our unconditional support for the brave striking brothers of CPUT (Cape Peninsula University of Technology). The
University workers and staff are on strike because, the bosses choose to ignore the unions and they don’t want to raise the wage sufficiently (because they claim – wrongly - that they have no
money).They are also refusing to implement the basic principle of equal work for equal pay. The struggle of the workers and staff shows us the way forward: class struggle action and industrial
action! We support the demands of the workers, including higher wages, equality and an end to outsourcing! We salute the heroic struggle of the students who have forced the write-off of debt and
the lowering of fees. Education was supposed to have been fully subsidized by the state. The writing off of the debt has nothing to do with the workers’ wages/salaries and conditions of service.
We say no to the militarisation of universities and call for an end to victimization of the students. We say no to suspension and expulsion of students who were advancing the cause of free
education.

We support the strike as it is part of the growing resistance against the government. Why do we say this: It is because even
though we have all been fighting for free, quality education for all up to the highest level, the government has cut funding to universities every year since 2000. At the same time, while
Anglo American and other monopolies have been stealing trillions before and after 1994, they have not been prosecuted and in fact their level of tax on profits have dropped from 48% in the
days of apartheid, to 28% now, under a supposedly democratic regime. The government and its allies deepen exploitation and show they are incapable of achieving true equality. They were
responsible for the massacre of the heroic brothers in Marikana and heat up xenophobia to divide the oppressed. Therefore we fight for the formation of a new revolutionary, workers party. Such a
party would concentrate to unite and coordinate the struggles of all workers and oppressed and not like the capitalist parties to get seats in parliament and money from the bosses!

We call for joint committees of workers, staff and students (and even parents) to be formed to support the strike. It is
intolerable that there is no end to discrimination, that there is still outsourcing and younger workers have fewer benefits. It is intolerable that the curriculum and university structures are
untransformed. University leaders should be directly elected and subject to instant recall; they should not earn more than the average staff member. We demand an end to cronyism and
nepotism.

Our class is international and the battles we fight are also international, a victory for the workers in South Africa is a
victory for all of our class! Therefore we call for international solidarity with the workers struggle in South Africa, not just for our brothers and sisters at CPUT, not only in support of the
students, but also for the miners, agricultural workers and all those who are exploited by the bosses! The struggle for an end to exploitation and oppression is international.